Economics of Education Essay

This project, critically reviews the sources of revenue at Kinondoni Municipal along with the budgetary allocation to secondary educational sector. It provides the major sources of revenue which include Central Government revenue, Basket fund (Donors) and Local government revenue which constitute revenue from city service levy, property tax, advertising and bill boarding fees, compensation revenue, and cost sharing. It identifies that education is the priorities to which the council does consider much in allocating their funds.

The project reveals the background on the system of financing education as an essential and critical kind of investment in developing countries particularly Tanzania. It has shown its significances with respect to running the system (government) in general. The significances give the stand to which the Government should take into consideration on allocating funds in secondary educational department.

More over the project has identified the objectives for analyzing the sources of revenue and educational budgetary allocation. These objectives have been stated in such a way that, it shows the directory as guidelines for reaching targeted goal(s) for sustainable development.

Nevertheless, case study method and documentary review as well as interview techniques were employed. The data have been analyzed using tables and figures.

1.0. Introduction and Background.

Kinondoni Municipal is located in Dar es Salaam City in Tanzania. It is bordered by Indian Ocean to North East, Ilala Municipal to the South, Bagamoyo District to the North, Kibaha District to the West and Kisarawe District to the South West. The Municipal has number of matters and services to be done/ provided to the community. Among others being education, health services, road construction and maintenances, water services, urban agriculture, power and energy supply and others of alike. All these services need money to run in effective way so that, the community members could appreciate the concern of the government for their well-being.

The Municipal has vision and Mission which the study was interested with, to check out whether are just worded or are real in practical terms. The study eyed particularly to its Mission statement “Provision of quality services to the community through effective and efficient use of resources, capacity building, good governance and rule of law hence improve the living standard of people”.

The project (study) was done at this Municipal to identify the sources of revenue for the Municipal to curter and serve the community effectively and efficiently. Another purpose was to check out, how the Municipal allocate its funds (Revenue) to secondary educational sector.

A source of revenue is a critical problem in running several activities to an individual, family, community and national level respectively. Moreover, despite the scarcity of fund (resources) in servicing the community, there is a problem on proper plans and allocating the present resources in optimal manner. Thus, the wise decisions on how to use the present resources in its scarcity is very important particularly for developing countries like Tanzania.

Another aspect towards this study (project) was to determine the way the sources of revenue are collected. On this activity, it is the point at which monitoring of revenue collection should be taken into consideration for effective performance. Furthermore, this exercise needs humanitarian aspiration than personal essence so that, the fruits will be for the community as large.

There are two significances of doing this project. First was to determine the sources of revenue to the Municipal in order to understand the position of Municipal and the Government in general in its strengths and weaknesses so as to address recommendations to be taken for better performance in future.

Second was to assess the allocation of the funds in secondary educational sector. From this, allocation of fund will realize the choices for most of the councils in Tanzania and the way investment aspects are taken into account especially educational investment, hence improvements to be made in a long run.

The objectives of this project were as follows

i) To determine the sources of revenue for Kinondoni Municipal.

ii) To assess the budget allocation to Secondary educational sector in Kinondoni Municipal.

The project presents various literature reviews in respective to the study (project). The literature review is mostly on sources of revenue, financing systems, administration, roles of the state and recommended suggestions.

Galabawa (1985, p. 1) claimed that, “Tanzania’s plan for extending educational opportunities and improving the quality of education are often hampered by the limited resources to educational industry”. This realizes that, the problem resources in provision of education in Tanzania is a problem that exists and needs a solution on how to go about in order to reduce the burden from the government to ensure more educational opportunities and improve the quality of education.

More emphasis on quality of education has been described by Michaelowa. The author tried to identify the areas which need to be checked to ensure that are taken into considerations for the consequences in anyhow. The author argued that, “The number of days teachers are absent from school (ABSENCE), and teachers’ self reported job satisfaction (MOTIVATION) have significant coefficients of the expected negative and positive sign respectively” (Michaelowa, 2001, p. 1707).

If the education industry is running short of resources to improve access and quality of education, and if the responsible persons needs to be motivated for effective teaching, means this industry need to be financed. The financing can be determined by number of factors as quoted from the article that, “The policies of financing education in any country reflect the country’s ideology. Although Tanzania’s education policies emphasized quality of opportunity and access, they also vary from environment prevailing at specific time” (Galabawa, 1994, p. 37)

This literature review has contributed much on this project since objectives stated can be revealed particularly on sources of revenue. According to Galabawa (2007, p. 3), There are various sources of education revenue. These sources can be divided into four broad categories: Fiscal sources; ser charges including various forms of cost recovery and cost sharing; student loan when constituted as a revolving fund which generates income out of which loans are offered to students and various forms of community contributions.

The fiscal sources include general taxes; earmarked taxes; taxes on With regards to education as an investment, and sources of educational revenue, the government has to play its role for sustainable development Galabawa (2007, p. 2) portrayed that, “The price of education can, therefore be influenced by the government decision which impinge on issues of supply of education services; the allocation and distribution of resources between different levels or different courses; the choice between different methods of financing education and student support or even between different methods of schooling”.

Therefore, this clarifies the position of the Government in provision of education in the country to assure access and proper allocation of funds in different sectors. Property; salaries and sales; and different types of levies.

For all matters being discussed concerning sources of revenue, educational revenue, budgetary allocation and the role of the government on educational investments and other sector, to have sustainable implementation of plans and to build capacity on fund management, accountability, effective audit and formula funding to generate consistent and reliable disbursements” should be taken into consideration for sustainable development.

Besides literature review, case study was employed during the project. The study was done in Kinondoni Municipal. Therefore purposeful sampling technique was used.

The project had two variables namely, dependent variable which is budget allocation, and independent variable which is source of revenue. With these variables the hypotheses of this project were as follows;

(i) There is a significant relationship between sources of revenue and budget allocation in secondary educational sector (Alternative hypothesis).

(ii) There are no basic criteria guiding for sources of revenue and budget allocation in secondary educational sector (Null hypothesis).

Field visit, discussion and interview.

The list of tools used to collect information and guide the field interview and discussion were documentary review and Interview. The targeted personnel were Municipal economist and district secondary educational officer; these were obtained using purposeful sampling in order to get correct information. The documentary review involved reviewing various documents concerning sources of revenue and general allocation (budget) of the fund to secondary educational sector. Also an interview was conducted in brief way with the Municipal economist and district secondary educational officer. The interview was basically on the way they get fund for running the Municipal to curter and serve the community. Moreover, the questions on what are the major criteria for allocating the fund and challenges they face on all matters concerning sources of revenue and allocation of fund in general were asked.

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